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I agree with you guys except for this bit, “no other company can come close to offer an alternative. Insane. And nonsensical. ” obviously there is a strong competitor in Android phones

BV was 242.28 / B-share at quarter end

You can really appreciate the diversity in income streams in a quarter like this, where reported profits from the electric utility business basically vanish (wildfire loss reserves wiping out accounting profits) but the absence of a consequential hurricane in Florida more than offsets with a windfall (more to come in q4 it seems). GEICO has shrunk, halved ad spending and raised prices - returning to respectable profits for now. Berkshire continues to de-leverage, repurchase some stock, and "t-bill and chill."

I think you guys have it right on the A-share preference. It is likely a combination of factors - 1. He prefers to have fewer A-shares outstanding after his death 2. The A-shares are so illiquid and hard to buy in size that he is in the market more steadily buying some, instead of turning it on and off 3. The phone number for larger holders to call Mark Millard with blocks of shares to offer probably has some OG families offering A-share blocks.

" PacifiCorp increased its liability for estimated pre-tax probable Wildfire losses, before expected related insurance recoveries, by $1.4 billion in the third quarter and by $1.9 billion in the first nine months of 2023. Expected probable Wildfire losses, net of expected insurance recoveries, were approximately $1.3 billion in the third quarter and $1.7 billion in the first nine months of 2023. Such amounts were included in energy operating expenses in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Earnings. PacifiCorp’s cumulative charges to date for estimated probable Wildfire losses were $2.4 billion through September 30, 2023."

Looks like they sold around 12.8 million CVX shares (~$2 Billion worth) in the quarter. Not hugely surprising given recent trends in their CVX trading.

The Berkshire Bond Portfolio! $22.4 Billion on a Trillion dollar asset base, with 78% of the "Bonds" maturing in a year or less (yes, Berkshire also has a $24 Billion mortgage business but I believe that is largely a spread business funded by BH Finance borrowings)

It's Saturday morning nerds! https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/nov0423.pdf https://berkshirehathaway.com/qtrly/3rdqtr23.pdf " Approximately $1.1 billion was used to repurchase Berkshire shares during the third quarter bringing the nine month total to approximately $7.0 billion. On September 30, 2023 there were 1,445,546 Class A equivalent shares outstanding. At September 30, 2023, insurance float (the net liabilities we assume under insurance contracts) was approximately $167 billion, an increase of $3 billion since yearend 2022." At 10/24 the share count was 1.444 million A-share equivalents (2.166 Billion B-share eq.)

Here is one more soundbite from the WSJ interview with Charlie, Re: Apple Charlie Munger isn't too worried about Apple's valuation. During a recent conversation with the Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman, I asked if he thought the tech giant's shares have gotten expensive to continue being a major Berkshire holding. Apple is trading at about 26.7 times its projected earnings over the next 12 months, compared with a 10-year average of 18.5, according to FactSet. “I don’t think we’ve got any rules about what we do at Berkshire. If it makes sense at the time in a rough kind of way, we do it. And that’s our system,” Munger responded. “I would argue that Berkshire would have less advantageous future prospects if we didn’t have our Apple.”

What do they make on the TRS on a day like today? Like $125 million bucks?

FFH Q3 cc.pdf

Are you asking what the definition of October is?

Cathie! She expects deflation and Bitcoin wins no matter what "Bitcoin is a hedge against both inflation and deflation because there’s no counterparty risk, and institutions are barely involved.” It’s “digital gold,” she said." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-03/cathie-wood-says-bitcoin-btc-is-digital-gold-as-deflation-hedge?srnd=premium

You know they aren't a widely followed hot stock when there are barely any questions asked on the call!

The seasonal fake-out has concluded! Long live the September effect

So end of Q3 the duration was still 2.3 years. The best part of the extended duration to 3.1 years (current situation) is that it occurred in October! An excellent time to grab those 3 and 5 year notes.

Tilson works for Porter

To be clear, this footnote only applies to Brit, not Fairfax as a whole

Because they are keeping the capital in the insurance subs. There isn't much excess capital at the holding company level

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/11/02/2772911/0/en/Fairfax-India-Holdings-Corporation-Third-Quarter-Financial-Results.html "At September 30, 2023 common shareholders' equity was $2,833.4 million, or book value per share of $20.89" " The company continued to buy back shares under its normal course issuer bid and during the first nine months of 2023 purchased for cancellation 2,609,481 subordinate voting shares at a net cost of $33.9 million ($12.98 per subordinate voting share)."

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/11/02/2772905/0/en/Fairfax-Financial-Holdings-Limited-Financial-Results-for-the-Third-Quarter.html "Book value per basic share at September 30, 2023 was $876.55" "We achieved an underwriting profit of $291.6 million on an undiscounted basis and a consolidated combined ratio of 95.0% for the quarter, reflecting significantly lower catastrophe losses and excellent current accident year underwriting margins. Gross premiums written grew by 5.0% and net premiums written grew by 4.8%, primarily reflecting new business and continued incremental rate increases in certain lines of business." "At September 30, 2023 the company's insurance and reinsurance companies held portfolio investments of $56.8 billion (excluding Fairfax India's portfolio of $2.0 billion), of which $6.4 billion was in cash and short term investments representing 11.2% of those portfolio investments. During the first nine months of 2023 the company used cash and net proceeds from sales and maturities of U.S. treasury and other government short term investments and short-dated U.S. treasuries to purchase $5.8 billion of U.S. treasuries with maturities between 3 to 5 years and $2.4 billion of U.S. treasuries with maturities between 5 to 7 years, and to make net purchases of $2.1 billion of short-dated first mortgage loans and $1.6 billion of corporate and other bonds with maturities primarily between 2 to 5 years. These actions should result in continued higher levels of interest income for approximately the next 4 years." "At September 30, 2023 there were 23,115,838 common shares effectively outstanding." FFH_-_2023_Q3_Interim_Report_.pdf FFH_-_2023_Q3_MD&A_section.pdf

At the time they were ramping up their balance sheet doing quantitative easing, it was actually functionally the opposite of money printing. The net effect was like a tax - the opposite of stimulus. QE exchanges one form of government liability (which is "money") for another. The Fed buys treasury securities and the seller of treasury securities gets reserves. Both are government liabilities, both are "money," but at the time, the treasury security paid more interest than the reserve account at the Fed. So the Fed removes that interest income from the private sector and replaces it with reserves which at the time earned basically zero. That is why during QE the Fed was reporting large profits on their balance sheet that they would remit to the Treasury (which reduces the deficit like a tax). Today, however, the long dated treasuries on the Fed's balance sheet earn less than cash and the Fed is running a loss on their balance sheet. This is stimulus - the Fed is paying net interest into the private sector. Much closer to money printing today than when they were building up the balance sheet doing QE.

I agree with all of that except that it IS "money printing" when the Fed runs a loss on their balance sheet like they are currently. Just like it is a form of tax when they were building up their balance sheet with QE and had a positive carry and were remitting the "profits" to the treasury each quarter (lowering the deficit). So ironically, QE acted as a tax because the Fed took interest income out of the hands of the private sector, made a profit on the carry, and remitted that profit to the treasury.